Adelsverein

by Celia Hayes

  Lantern light gleamed momentarily from a pair of someone’s spectacles and reminded her of Vati. Dearest Vati, whose love for them was the constant bedrock underlying all their lives. Vati would have adored this celebration, this gathering. He would have sat in his favorite wooden garden chair with the other greybeards, watching with approval as his oldest granddaughter married an American, kin to Magda’s own husband, whom Vati had loved as a son. So would Mrs. Helene, who had dressed Magda for her own wedding, taken her firmly in hand and led her downstairs. “Who would you wish to grow old with?” Dear Mrs. Helene had asked her, during that breathless and fraught period when she had been caught between two suitors, two men of honor whom she had held in equal affection, who had both tendered offers of marriage.

  How confused she had been, how uncertain; until her sleeping mind had told her which man was her soul mate, the man she wished to grow old with. It turned out not to be Charley, the charming man of business, everyone’s friend and no man’s enemy, who had threaded an easy way between opposite parties in the late war, the war whose conflicting loyalties had tormented the man she had chosen to marry. She never was given the opportunity to grow old with him, after all. His implacable enemy had found an opportunity to murder her dear husband. “Be happy,” Carl Becker had said to her, as the Hanging Band led him away. “Look after the children.”

  And so she had, obedient to his last wish. How she had come to love him, to give her heart unreservedly to him. Oh, that Anna could come to know that kind of love, but be spared from the devastation that came when love was no longer there.

  She had so looked forward to growing old with him; so cruel that it would have been denied to her. But Vati had not been given the gift of growing old with Mutti, nor Margaret with either Peter’s father, or Doctor Williamson. Perhaps love was all that was given, love for a time and conditional upon larger events. If love was all that there was, best to take it and squeeze all the juice of happiness, like an apple in the press, or an orange with the little olive-wood reamer. Love, a gift that is there for a time, take it up with both hands and savor the sweetness of the juice. Savor the day, and the sweetness, every day; for at the end of things, that may be all that the fates have granted to you! That and the children that came of that love; her brothers and Liesel, Dolph and Sam, Hannah and Lottie, Peter and Anna.

  Love and today—all that could be counted on for a certainty, love and the constant affection of old friends. Anna, dearest of kin, almost a daughter of her own, friend and ally; would that she would find happiness in this odd marriage, in this strange land! Magda took another drink of the champagne in the glass in her hand, hoped that it would work for her niece and the man Anna had chosen for herself, hoped that Anna knew well her own heart and Peter’s, too. He was a good lad, whom the war had treated most cruelly and marked for life with scars that would never fade.

  * * *

  With thoughts of morning’s departure and a day of regular work looming over all, Anna’s wedding party did not last as far into the night as Rosalie’s had. It dwindled to a handful by midnight, as guests made their excuses. As the party slowed to a small and exhausted scattering of family, Dolph came and fetched Peter. On a last quiet check of the packed kitchen wagon and the ambulance fitted out for Anna, Dolph had discovered that one of their saddle horses, intended for the remuda and eventual sale in Kansas, had chewed a hole in a sack of grain and eaten enough to have given himself a case of the bloat. By the time they had dealt with this emergency and returned to the house, the garden was darkened. Mellow lamplight glowed faintly behind the upstairs windows. Peter heard voices from the kitchen; Ma’am Becker and Mrs. Schmidt, accompanied by the clatter of crockery. He looked around the corner of the parlor to bid a good night to Hansi, who was settling with a groan on the chaise to sleep. Doctor Keidel had forbidden him to attempt the stairs.

  For about the first time that day, it sank in on Peter that he and Hansi were now kin; that stubborn, ambitious Dutch teamster and man of business was his father-in-law; he and Anna were legally man and wife. All the elation, the excitement that he had felt over the last two days abruptly drained away.

  Oh, lord, thought Peter, Was that such a good idea after all? He assured himself it was as he trudged wearily up the narrow staircase, but he hardly felt convinced. It had seemed like a fine impulsive notion when the two of them agreed to marry two days ago. It had even seemed quite the thing when they stood up before Pastor Altmueller some hours ago, Anna trim and tidy in dark blue and her cheeks the delicate pink of primroses. He felt a fine and fierce affection and pride; such a clever and beautiful woman, a woman he could be honored to introduce as his wife!

  A complexion like fine rich cream she had; that afternoon, his heart had skipped with a strange sort of excitement—soon he would know if the rest of her was as luscious. But then she would see him, see him entire, see that scarred stump of an arm; and he couldn’t banish away that little niggling fear that she might be revolted, would think less of him, knowing that he was not whole.

  He paused on the landing at the top of the stairs. Sometime during that interminable day, Ma’am Becker had asked him something about whether they wished to spend their first night as a married couple in the little Sunday House on Creek Street? He couldn’t think why it would matter, and anyway, the wagons and horses were here. What was the sense of going all the way over to that tiny cottage, when they would just have to return here in the morning? He couldn’t think why Ma’am Becker had even suggested it, or why she seemed disappointed when he said no.

  A band of faint light showed underneath the door of the large guest room that he and Dolph had always shared after Hansi had removed his family to San Antonio. Dolph, with much ribald comment, had moved his small luggage and his possessions into Sam’s bedroom.

  “You’re lucky we’re away in the morning, else I would have the fellows give you a right good chivaree,” he threatened, with a grin from ear to ear. “I may yet, Cuz!”

  “Better not,” Peter scowled. “Think of what your ma would have to say about that!”

  “We’d be on the trail to Kansas, before she could say much,” Dolph answered. “No, I’ll take mercy on you, Cuz. What Anna would say doesn’t bear thinking, not when you’ll be spending the nights with her from here on out,” Dolph added with coarse good humor.

  Thinking on that, Peter sighed most wretchedly. Here it was, and the bride was supposed to be the one dreading the wedding night. Again, Peter wondered what mad recklessness had led him to this.

  He tapped on the door very lightly, but the catch was not set and it slipped ajar under that slight pressure. He stood hesitantly in the doorway and gaped at the sight of Anna. She sat unconcernedly in the middle of the bed, two ledgers in her lap and a pen in her hand. She was in her nightgown, and her brown hair tumbled around her face and down her back. She looked all of twelve years old.

  “Is the horse fit for the trail tomorrow?” she asked with great interest, “or shall we have to leave it behind? Auntie and Porfirio will be so disappointed. He was counting on a good price for them all.”

  “Dolph thinks the wretched beast will be fit in a couple of days,” Peter answered, taken aback. “We’ll go slow, of course . . . and use it gently, if at all.”

  “Good,” Anna sighed, utterly practical. She corked the ink bottle and closed the topmost ledger, placed them on the night table, and regarded Peter with a coldly assessing eye. “You look tired. You should come to bed.”

  “I . . .” Peter began, but she clicked her tongue against her teeth.

  “Close the door, then.” She slithered to the side of the bed and stood up, aswirl in an ocean wave of muslin ruffles and lace. He couldn’t help briefly seeing her bare feet and legs as she did so—creamy and perfect, like the rest of her. “A long day, and a longer one tomorrow, and all the days after that, looking after Papa’s cows!”

  Utterly confident, she came to him and calmly took his good coat from where he held it, draped ove
r his wooden arm. She put it onto a wooden hanger and set it on a peg in the wardrobe, and then—to Peter’s astonishment—she began undoing the buttons of his best waistcoat, as calmly as if she performed the duties of a gentleman’s valet every day. Clever woman, she perceived his feelings at once and said with an exasperated yet fond sigh, “Mr. Vin—Peter. I know about the duties of a wife, in the marriage bed. Truly I do, although I have not experienced them. I know . . . of those things that a loving husband and wife are supposed to do, and I do not think you are disinclined. This is true?”

  Peter laughed, a short and wry bark of laughter. “You’ve no idea,” he began, but Anna interjected, “But I do! You are tired and this has all happened so very suddenly.” To his astonishment, she had slipped his good waistcoat off his shoulders. “Will you want this in Kansas?” she asked. “I think so, to meet with the cattle buyers. You shall need to be at your best. Alas, clothes do make the man, in the eyes of the world. Papa tells me so and so does Captain Nimitz. The stories he can tell, about the people who have come to his hotel! And the secret things that their clothing and bearing may tell to the observer with a knowing eye!” She found a hanger for the waistcoat and set it away, adding, “Of course, I can tell the same of the many customers who came to our shop! I will pack these in the morning—clothes should air after being worn. Sit. Sit, sit, and take off your boots.”

  Peter obeyed, thinking that it was a strange thing, beyond his knowledge of the world, to accept ministrations of the sharp-tongued and ferocious Miss Anna. She took his boots—his work boots, worn for his duties on horseback—and put them in the wardrobe. He had not thought when he came to Friedrichsburg this time, that he would have any social obligations, so he had left his good town shoes at the Becker place. Dolph had the house rebuilt over the winter, between cattle-drives, and Peter had a room in the new stone-built wing overlooking the white cloud of the apple orchard. Berg, that strange and abrupt-speaking stonemason, came out of the hills in his ragged work clothes and his tools in a pack on his back and stayed at the place all winter to oversee the work that Dolph could now pay men to do. Berg, who had made Peter’s arm for him, the arm that made him nearly whole again; at least, folk did not stare at him in the street any more, stare at the pinned-up sleeve and the hand that was there no longer, as they had ever since the day that a harried Army surgeon had ordered him to bite down on a thick leather strap and went to work with his shining sharp surgical saw.

  Oh, God—what to do next. They were married, and married folk shared such intimacies! He cringed, to think of Miss Anna . . .to think of Anna seeing such things and being repulsed! But instead, she came back from the wardrobe and sat on the bed next to him, swinging her feet like a small child, saying in such a candid and earnest manner, “I told you once, I think. You were not your arm. When I see you, I see you, yourself—your character and intellect, your conversation. I do not see that limb which is not there. It is not relevant. Auntie Magda has a scar on her cheek, but it does not change the person she is. Opa was so near of sight that he could hardly see farther than the book in his hands. Yet that did not change anything about him. It is merely some aspect, hardly worthy of consideration save in passing. So we are married.” She looked sideways at him, her eyes as dark in the low lamp-glow as Daddy Hurst’s trail-coffee. “You should not fear that I should be so shallow. I know who you are and accept that without reserve. Did I not say vows, before my family and friends? Then let me add another vow, a private one, between the two of us.” She reached for his hands, the live and the wooden together, holding them together and clasped between hers. Peter looked at her fingers, soft childish hands, well-tended although her fingertips were stained somewhat with ink, which not all scrubbing could remove entirely. “I promise,” she seemed to search for words and choose them carefully, “that from this time forward, I will not use sharp and clever words to tease and bait you in front of others. Not my family or friends, or even my cousins. I did so, ever since the day we met, part for my own amusement and because it amused others. I never considered that you might find such wit to be cruel or hurtful.”

  “Never, Miss—Anna,” Peter shook his head, oddly moved. “Never—for I also took pleasure in our contests of wit and words.”

  “Oh, good,” Anna laughed with uninhibited relief. The dimples showed in both her cheeks and Peter thought how much delight he took in seeing her laugh like that. “I had hoped you did, but I also considered that you might be dissembling, hiding such pain from us all. So,” she continued, “I shall never torment you in front of other people. And on matters in which we disagree—and I know that we will, since we are two people of divergent experience and opinions—I would take care to make our discussion of such matters private.”

  “Ah,” said Peter with a wry chuckle, “you would only take me out behind the woodshed for a whipping . . . discretely. I appreciate that . . . Anna. Less embarrassing all the way around!”

  “I would ask you for reciprocal courtesy when it comes to our disagreements,” Anna continued. She wore a slight frown, either of displeasure at being interrupted, or of concentration on the care she took with her words. “It is no light thing to be married, for a woman. And I have seen it to go very badly where there is neither liking nor respect between husband and wife. We should, I think, be like sword and shield for each other. One to protect, the other to defend against such woes the world inflicts upon us, as we stand together.”

  “I the sword and you the shield?” Peter was touched by her care and honesty, also that she would hit on that very chivalrous simile.

  Anna nodded. “Or the other way around; you have no notion of how women may be so quietly vicious over the teacups. Are we agreed, then?” Peter nodded and she sighed rather happily, taking both his hands closer to her breast. She smelled deliciously of rose-water. Perhaps they had done well with this marriage after all, although for the life of him he still could not believe this was really happening to him.

  They sat so for some minutes, until Anna said at last, “You should not put off preparing for sleep, you know . . . dreading to show me those scars which I know you must have.” Such honesty fair took his breath away, her accurate reading of that fear he did not even dare voice to himself. “I shall not flinch,” Anna added, soft but implacable. Without further fuss or ado, she began unfastening the buttons on his shirt-cuffs and those at his throat. There was no going back, Peter told himself. No going back, no more than he could have turned around at the edge of that Pennsylvania wheat field, in that breathless moment when the fortunes of the South were at high tide mark. He pulled the hem of his best white linen shirt out of his trouser waistband, pulled the garment over his head, knowing with a kind of despair that she would see . . . everything, and not be able to look upon him without horror or disgust. No matter how well she schooled her expressions … how could she help feeling anything else? He did not want to look at her, but could not look away.

  To his utter and continuing relief, Anna took the shirt from him, turned it right side out again, and folded it carefully, her face lit with nothing other than a mild and clinical interest.

  “Oh, so that’s how Mr. Berg designed it,” she commented. “How very clever—with buckles so that you can put in on and fasten it with one hand. I would have thought some kind of lacing, almost like my corsets . . . but then you couldn’t manage it, with only one hand, could you?”

  “I suppose not,” Peter answered. His chest felt tight, frozen, as if he dared not breathe.

  Anna touched the first of the buckles, very lightly. “I can help you with it,” she offered, “if you don’t mind. It must be rather uncomfortable, at the end of a long day.”

  “It aches, sometimes,” Peter ventured, past the tightness in his chest. “Hot compresses help with the worst. For months afterwards, I could feel my wrist hurting. Even though it wasn’t there any more, it still hurt.”

  Anna unfastened the last of the buckles on the straps that held the upper part of Berg’s cre
ation close around what the surgeon had left of his forearm. Even though the inside was padded with a knitted, sock-like garment, there were still alternate red or pale welts on the flesh beneath.

  “It’s heavier than I thought,” Anna observed, holding the wooden arm as he slipped it off. “Where should I put it? Close by?”

  “Yes,” he answered. He always felt a little strange putting the arm off, superstitiously nervous about having it out of his sight, as if it were some kind of talisman that he could not bear to let go of. And perhaps it was, at that. He peeled off the sock-padding, feeling that he may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, feeling her curious eyes upon that scarred truncation. “So, what think you of this, Mrs. Vining?” he asked bleakly.

  “I think it is truly the most ghastly and hideous mutilation of human flesh that mankind ever suffered,” she answered, seriously; but there was a humorous glint in her eyes. Peter gaped for one endless moment and then he began to laugh. It was as if a great bubble of morbid self-consciousness had been pierced. He had been fixated on his amputated limb, worried to a ridiculous degree about it, but Anna had unerringly put it into the right proportion again. He whooped with laughter until his chest ached, laughed to tears, knowing that Anna laughed also. He held her close as they lay across the bed, convulsed with shared laughter. It didn’t matter that he didn’t have two whole arms, only that she was there.

  When he could finally speak again, he whispered, “’She loved me for the dangers that I had pass’d, and I loved her that she did pity them . . .’”

  “Oh, I believe we shall do better than they did,” Anna answered firmly. “Much, much better.”

  “In the morning, they began the trip north,” Magda said to Lottie. “And several days after that, Fredi followed after with the second herd. From that day, our feet were set on a path of silver and gold, as your Onkel Hansi promised. He did well with cattle—in the years after we prospered, as if everything turned to gold at our touch. Our store, the freighting business, the cattle and horse herds . . .those all worked together, like the legs of a sturdy stool. Hansi considered such ideas for business as your cousins and your brothers had, and invested in them. In some years our own cattle were only a small portion of those that we sent north. Hansi and Fredi would contract to take this or that owner’s herd to Kansas. They would hire the cook, the drovers and the wranglers and negotiate the selling price at the end of the trail—all for a percentage of the profits. Anna and Peter went up the trail often, or as often as she could, before their children were born.”